Let the Game Begin
by Rhino7
Summary: Second official teaser for As the Sun Sets on Mushroom Clouds


**Let the Game Begin**

**By Rhino7**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Kingdom Hearts, its characters or storyline. This oneshot is mine. This is the second official teaser for **_**As the Sun Sets on Mushroom Clouds**_**, and also sets the stage for a major plot point in that full length story. I hope to have the first chapter up by the end of the month. Enjoy!**

**..:-X-:..**

The old residential district of Radiant Garden was a mess. Even the well-to-do parts that were always nice…especially the well-to-do parts.

Tifa remembered this district. Even after ten years, a war, and demolition/reconstruction, she recognized it, lurking below the ashes. The corpse of a splendor long expired. It had been far from her side of the tracks, but it was the only part from the Before that had survived…if barely.

She wasn't sure what possessed her to come here. Nostalgia, solace, maybe some sense of familiarity and solid memory in the chaos of the past few months. Reminiscing was that two-timing friend that you trusted, but always came back to kick you in the ass. But every time, every single time, she let that little frie-nemy sneak up on her again.

Radiant Garden was coming back to life.

It was nursing its wounds and healing, slowly but surely. She could see it every day. More people returning home, less skirmishes with the Heartless around the perimeter. The old castle ruins had been quiet for weeks. Public confidence was up and protests were down. Things were getting better. Healing.

But parts of old Radiant Garden had become gangrenous, and talk was spreading about amputating the old to graft on the new, the fresh, the healthy. It was a shame, really. There were decades, maybe centuries, of history and culture in these buildings…Not everything that was dented and broken deserved to be thrown away. Stained, scarred, and ugly things were still salvageable. These buildings were survivors.

This old district was all that was left of Radiant Garden before the Heartless. These buildings had survived the Heartless, the war, the regeneration, and the worst weather the world had seen in years…and now the new, fresh parts wanted to tear it down, pave it smooth, and make it healthy again.

Maybe we all need to be a little sick, a little 'gangrenous', just to keep things interesting.

Tifa clasped her hands behind her back, walking the busted and cracked asphalt that curved and dipped around the large homes—manors in some cases—and eyed the distraught and overgrown landscape that had once been meticulously kept.

Definitely not her neck of the woods.

Tifa's neck of the woods had been…not the slums…a step above the slums perhaps. Simple apartments, actual houses if you were on the up-end, kickball in the backyard, daily chores and paying for broken windows when kickball got out of hand. She'd never complained; it was her life and she loved it…But it was never this.

This was the wealthy district. When she was younger and the boys got gross and the girls got boring, she would chance a peak into this place, at the large homes, manicured lawns, fancy cars, and the well-postured people. Most were snobby and had that just-ate-a-lemon look, but not all of them.

She slowed her stride as she passed by her favorite house. It wasn't as large as some of the others. Two stories, with maybe an attic in that triangular part of the roof. Pale brick, white door, simple stone driveway and walking path. No fence, no birdbaths, no big gaudy sculptures littering the yard. It was modest and she loved it.

Most of the Restoration Committee had never lived in this district. Cloud and Aerith had been street urchins like her, going to school, getting summer jobs, and getting their good clothes dirty. Yuffie had been born to a wealthy family, but she had been so young when the invasion happened that she could barely remember it. Cid had been a mechanic who worked for anybody, regardless of their income, so he knew his way around. Leon had grown up here.

The modest, pale brick house was gaunt and emaciated. A state of disrepair had fallen onto it, like all the other structures here. Gaping holes and ramshackle interiors. First the Heartless had hit, then the war, and then the looters. She was surprised the whole place hadn't burned down already. She was glad it hadn't.

The district was elegant and stately, even though it had been stripped down and thrown in the mud. There was something really beautiful about it that she couldn't describe.

And Radiant Garden was campaigning to level it all.

No one lived here. None of the structures were sound or safe. Some saw it as an eyesore, some as a bad memory that they wanted to forget. Maybe some, like her, wanted to preserve the last solid evidence that life had existed before the Heartless.

Cid had pointed out the old Leonhart place once when he and Tifa had run a short mission in the district. They had been in a hurry, and Tifa had barely known Leon when he pointed it out, so she had thrown the place a glance and then continued with the run.

Now, though, she found the place fascinating.

It looked remarkably square, no real roof—or at least the surviving structure seemed to suggest the roof had been very flat and understated. Though the house was square, the stones built into it had a circular quality to them, and an uneven texture. Something trying so hard to be composed and together and yet still pretty disoriented…It fit the man.

The idea of going inside had tempted her more than once. Even after everything they'd been through, getting Leon to open up about 'before' was like pulling teeth. It was like he'd built a vault and stuffed everything pre-Heartless into that vault, locked it tight, and melted down the key into bullets. So the notion of getting a behind-the-scenes look at what made Leon, well, Leon, had peaked her interest.

Just as many times as she had been tempted, however, she had rejected it. Even though it was a condemned building that no one had lived in for a decade, it was still private property. It was the Leonhart place, and Leon was the only one of those left around, so it was his, and she had no right to trespass on it.

But it was also on the chopping block, along with the rest of the district. Leon had been infuriatingly silent on the subject, putting on such a show of apathy that he had almost everybody convinced that he didn't care. It was the little things that gave him away, because with Leon it was always little things.

Tifa, Cloud, Aerith, and Cid's homes were all gone, the first casualties of the war. Yuffie couldn't remember hers. And this big box of brick and memories was like a giant grave to Leon. Tilting her head, Tifa held her arms about herself, staring at the house. From what she'd pieced together, his father had been an eccentric weapons' collector. So it had been one of the first spots that the uppity underground fighters had hit when they were stocking up to fight the Heartless.

Things had been moment by moment then, when no one knew when the Heartless would show up or how large their numbers would be, so subtlety had been thrown out the window. From the kicked in front door, Tifa could see some furniture and materials strewn about in disarray. Battered and left derelict.

Leon had changed his name, she knew. He wouldn't tell her what his name had been, because he was a different person now, yadda, yadda, yadda. But what had he been like? Before? Did she really want to know? Curiosity and the cat and all that. But if this place was going to be destroyed, maybe she deserved a little—

Something was moving inside. A person.

Tifa paused.

It was too big to be an animal, unless it was a bear or something…A looter?

"Hey!" She barked, taking two long steps up the stone path that led to the front door.

More movement, and before Tifa could call out again, the person stepped into the main hallway that was visible through the door. Leon.

"Leon?" Tifa blinked, surprised.

He looked up, sidestepping around an overturned reclining chair and over a broken mirror, the shards crunching under his boots. "Hey, what're you doing way out here?"

She just gawked like an idiot for a second. "Going for a walk." She blurted.

Leon looked at her, and then looked up and down the ghost town of a street. "You pick a weird place to go for a walk."

Tifa shook herself. "No, I was just—What are you doing way out here?"

He regarded her flatly, "This is my house."

"You don't live here." Tact, Tifa, tact. "I mean—it's—"

He waved her off, and for the first time, she saw the rectangular box in his other arm. "I know." He walked away from the house without glancing back at it. "Just wanted to make sure things were…I mean…They're planning on bulldozing it all."

Tifa looked back at the house as he walked past her, utterly wrong-footed. "Yeah, I—" She turned and walked after him. "What's that?"

Nosy…nosy, nosy, nosy! She scolded herself inwardly. It's none of your business what that is! He's about to have his childhood home demolished and you're being nosy!

Leon didn't look offended or upset at the question though. No real reaction at all, actually. He just held up the box. "This?"

Upon second look, Tifa could see it was a richly toned, hand carved mahogany box, roughly a foot long, six inches wide and about three inches tall. A seam ran around it, cutting it in half, like it would fold open, and two brass hinges were set along one side.

"Yeah." She clarified.

"It's the only thing worth salvaging." He replied, still not looking back at the house.

That bothered her for some reason.

"Really." She said, looking back for him. "In that whole house?"

"You're being prying today." He quirked an eyebrow at her.

She exhaled and faced forward, not responding to that.

They walked in silence for a few minutes, nearly out of the old district. The waning light of the day was giving everything that gray hue to it. Tifa looked back several times at the old houses, particularly the Leonhart place. It looked thoroughly abandoned now. Leon never looked back. It was unsettling her more and more by the second.

Stepping out of the old district and into the new was like crossing over into a new world. Suddenly all of the color and people were moving around her. It smelled like freshly cut wood instead of old rotting wood, and buildings were in a state of construction instead of demolition. It abruptly felt very melancholy to her.

When Leon turned to head back to the apartment, and Tifa turned in the same direction, he looked at her. "You're not going back into town?"

"Why should I?" She asked, not looking directly at him.

They both knew she had been spending a lot of time there…but neither of them wanted to vocalize it at the moment. They were still trying to adjust to…everything…and everything that wasn't…No, no more reminiscing!

"I'm going home." She gestured, to recover the odd beat that passed.

He grunted at that and they kept walking.

By the time they reached the apartment that they shared, Tifa couldn't take it anymore.

"You're okay with this?" She asked, flipping on the lights.

Leon closed the door and set the box on the kitchen table, "How long have we lived together, Tifa? Hm? Until I throw the damn couch out the window, yes, I'm okay with it."

She rubbed her forehead, "No, I mean—"

"I know what you mean, and yes, I'm okay with this." He said, and his tone begged her to drop it.

"How?" She said, and her tone said she was NOT dropping it. "It was your home and you're perfectly all right with the town destroying it?"

"It WAS home. Now this," He knocked his knuckles against the coffee table as he sat down, "is home. It's old, it's in disrepair. No one has lived there in over a decade. It's a corpse and I'm letting them finally bury it, okay?"

"No, not okay." She slipped around the couch and dropped into it.

He exhaled heavily and set the box on the coffee table, fiddling with the clasp on the side. "The survivors took all of my father's weapons, to fight against the Heartless, within a year of the invasion. Looters over the past _decade_ have been picking through all of my mother's jewelry, valuables, and any furniture they thought was useful. The safes are all gone. It's been squatted in, suffered the elements, and part of it has been burned down." He looked to her slowly, "Anything that was still salvageable, I've either sold off or stored somewhere. This," He tapped the box, "is literally the last thing worth saving in that house."

It was the most he'd said about the whole situation, and Tifa felt a pit in her stomach.

"I'm sorry." She said, averting her eyes to the box.

He didn't respond to that, but just loosened the clasp and used a paper clip that had been resting on the table to wriggle it open. It clicked open and he started to work on the seam where the folds met, which had been nearly glued shut after ten years without being touched.

Feeling slightly like an intruder, Tifa sat back into the couch and held her arms about herself. They sat in silence for a few minutes while Leon eased the seams loose like a trained member of the bomb squad and Tifa just watched, still curious.

After about five minutes of gentle coaxing, Leon managed to get his fingernails into the seam and pry it open. The top side of the box popped open with a chiding _cluck_ noise, and he slowly opened it, like a wooden book. The brass hinges screamed their protest the whole way, but they fell quiet once he opened it completely.

"What is it?" Tifa asked, sitting up a little as he leaned forward, reaching into the contents.

From where she was sitting, there were several loose pieces lying inside the interior, which was lined in some kind of silver cloth. It might have been silk at one point, but it was sort of moth eaten now. Leon plucked up one of the pieces and held it up, running his thumb over the side to dislodge some old particles that had gathered on it.

It was a carved brass rook, roughly three inches tall.

"A chess set?" She inquired, sitting forward, elbows on her knees now.

"Very observant." Leon remarked, not looking up as he set the rook aside and pulled out pawns, bishops, kings and queens, and knights.

The entire set was solid brass, hand carved and shiny under the old age. One half was the simple brass color, the other half was a richer, almost bronze shade. It was a beautiful set, she concluded, watching as Leon picked up and inspected each piece before setting it on the coffee table.

Now, she noticed, the box itself turned into a playing board. The carved designs on the outside of the case were actually the checkered pattern of the board. Gorgeous. She'd never seen a set like it. Chess was more or less regarded as a stuffy game played by old people who were bored and rich people who wanted to be seen as intellectual.

Leon exhaled suddenly and Tifa tore her eyes from the set, looking at him. He seemed to have deflated, but she wasn't sure whether to be alarmed or relieved by that; with Leon it was always hard to tell. He was quiet a moment, and then rubbed his jaw before glancing at her.

"It's all here." He sounded incredulous. "No pieces are missing."

Tifa looked from Leon, to the chess set on the coffee table, and eyeballed the pieces. From what she knew about chess, he was right: nothing seemed to be missing.

"Nobody touched it." He sat back a little, but not too far. A little half-chuckle escaped him. "It survived."

She felt her heart slam into her throat and clasped her hands together, looking at the set. "It's beautiful." She said softly. "Was it—"

"Mom's." He replied. "She said an old boyfriend gave it to her. Dad was always trying to get rid of it. They squabbled about it all the time…Not like a real fight, but he teased her about it. She finally just hid it." He smirked. "Hid it from Dad. Hid it from the looters…"

"But she didn't hide it from you." Tifa smiled.

For the briefest moment, an unreadable look spread across his face, but just as quickly, it was gone, and he cleared his throat, sitting up again and turning the box over so that the board was fully visible. Without a word, he started moving the pieces into the starting set up.

"Well…I'm…I'm glad nobody took it." Leon's voice was always so flat, that any little smidgeon of emotion that broke through was like an electric guitar solo busting into a church choir. Such was the case with that small statement.

Tifa sighed, shook her head, and stood, stepping away from the couch. "I'm warning you right now—" He glanced at her and she put her hands on her hips. "I'm about to hug you, so don't freak out."

He made an exasperated noise. "Don't—"

She had already slid onto the arm of the recliner where he was sitting. She looped both arms around his shoulders and gave him a tight sideways hug, weaving her fingers together around his shoulder. He didn't fight her, had learned not to, and just let her get it out of her system for a moment. Then he reached up and tapped her elbow, like he was tapping out of a wrestling match.

Reluctantly, she loosened her arms, but remained sitting where she was, propping one forearm on his shoulder.

"Thanks." He mumbled, setting up the remaining pieces.

"You know," She chirped, eying the chess set. "this box isn't the only thing of worth to come out of that house." She said.

He groaned, swatting her away, "Don't be cheesy."

"Oh come on," She ruffled his hair—just because it annoyed him—and returned to her spot on the couch. "I was rocking some Lifetime original movie there."

"Then change the channel." He grunted.

Once it was all set up, Tifa pushed her hair out of her eyes. "Want to play?"

Leon eyed the board for a moment, shook his head, and stood. "No. I've got patrols in—" he checked the clock on the wall and grimaced, "—ten minutes ago."

Tifa snorted, "Slacker."

He stepped out of the living room and she sat forward, picking up one of the pawns and turning it over between her fingers. She heard the gunblade clink away from the wall and he grunted some kind of goodbye as he closed the door after him, to which she grunted something equally back.

She continued to study the pawn for a few seconds, before tilting her head and setting it on the board, two spots ahead of its starting position. Opening move. Leon was a mess. An honest mess. She pursed her lips and stood, stretching. She had patrol right after his shift, so it would be at least tomorrow afternoon before she'd get to talk to him again…By then, the window of this conversation would have passed and this set would no doubt be tucked away somewhere, out of sight and mind like the rest of the man's sentimentalities.

A mess.

Sometime between his coming in and her going out that morning, the motion had been voted on and passed that the old district would indeed be leveled out, and anyone with any surviving property should sort through it while they could and sign the proper consent forms, yadda, yadda, yadda.

If Leon went back to the place, he didn't say anything about it. Tifa didn't expect him to say anything if he did, but by the time she got back to the apartment the next afternoon, he was gone. The note on the kitchen counter told her a mission had popped up in Traverse Town, and he'd probably be gone until the next morning most likely.

Grunting, Tifa set the note back down. Her eyes drifted to the chess set. It was still out. Thoroughly surprised, she walked toward the coffee table. The pieces were still set up. Her pawn was still sitting boldly in its opening position. She also noticed that one of the opposite pawns along the border had been moved forward. A counter to her move.

A giddy little smile spread over her mouth and Tifa tapped her chin once before leaning down. She took up one of the bright brass knights, moved it up two spaces and one to the left, before setting it back down. Her response to his counter.

Straightening, Tifa tutted and went to her bedroom, starting up the shower and pushing out of her boots. Duke didn't acknowledge her beyond a swish of the tail where the dog was lying curled on Tifa's bed.

She turned on the light. Your move, Leon.


End file.
